Mental Health Awareness Week: Social Media

I thought I would add my contribution to Mental Health Awareness week which is this week.

My worries for the young generation that is growing up in an incredibly fake world where apparently everything is obtainable frightens the living daylights out of me.

Society is creating a generation after generation that feel unworthy, have no self esteem, and lack confidence in themselves. There’s a belief that they must act or look a certain way to be accepted by society.

Where is the root problem?

It’s firmly lodged with social media.

Social media may possibly have some positive effects, but I believe they are outweighed by the negative behaviour of celebrities and micro influencers that are convincing young people that if they don’t have a certain way about them they won’t fit in. It’s hard enough as a teenager to fit in as it is without the added pressures of your peers telling you that you don’t look good or right. If just one person feels depressed, anxious or suicidal after using social media, that outweighs any positives social media may of had.

Our young generation are supposed to be our future and the future leaders of this world, but we are constantly bombarding them with ideals and a way of life that they couldn’t possibly achieve.

It’s not about under achieving, it’s about trying to make realistic targets in life and realising that not everybody will become the next biggest star in Hollywood or a world leader. In fact very few do.

Let’s lower the bar a bit and show our young people that what really matters is strong mental health, happiness and living a productive life.

Social media is out of control. It’s starting to dictate, especially to younger people, how to live their lives. Younger people are starting to believe it’s a real world on the likes of Instagram or SnapChat it’s not even close to the real world.

It’s addictive and it’s designed to be that way. It will leave you feeling down if you don’t get your fix on a daily basis or even worse as many young people do, on an hourly basis. It’s like a drug thats invisible because what they see they believe, but the effects on people’s, or more importantly impressionable younger peoples mental health is enormous and you can’t see that but at some point it will come home to roost. Prevention is better than cure.

I truly believe we need to start educating our youngest children that yes, Instagram and other social media platforms are ok but they should be treated as a bit of fun because it’s so far removed from the real world. It’s so important that that they are educated at a very early age because there is no going back. It’s here to stay, like it or not.

We have seen and heard of so many negatives that social media has had on peoples mental health from depression to the worst possible scenario, suicide. So let’s get our young people to talk but not on social media platforms via a smart phone. Let’s get them talking to real people in person and let them know it’s ok to have a bad day and they can reach out for help.

We need as a society to remove the stigma surrounding mental health because it is still there and it’s taking too long to remove it.